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Lot 230

A Very Rare English Door-Lock
Unsigned But Almost Certainly By John Wilkes Of Birmingham, Late 17th Century

29 April 2010, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £7,200 inc. premium

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A Very Rare English Door-Lock
Unsigned But Almost Certainly By John Wilkes Of Birmingham, Late 17th Century

The mechanism of iron with single sprung catch and five locking bolts, all encased in a four-piece brass cover stepped and fluted on three sides, the main plate engraved at its borders with foliage and spiral ribands, mostly on a cross-hatched ground, and pierced and engraved with entwined branches bearing flower-heads against a blued ground, circular detector dial numbered from 'I' to 'III' and decorated as a flower-head in black enamel, operating against a small sprung pin catch, and with compressed fluted handle, manually operated sliding bolt with brass handle en suite against an engraved brass plate, sprung pivoting urn-shaped keyhole-cover, compressed brass handles each of eight lobes between flutes and both retained by a domed fluted washer en suite, original striking-plate en suite, and retaining its original four threaded brass retaining bolts each with domed fluted head and nut (2)
19.6 cm. wide (including striking-plate)

Footnotes

For a similar lock in Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire, see Avery Tipping, 'English Homes, Period IV', Country Life Publications, vol. I, p. 362 (illustrated)

A detector lock by John Wilkes (d. 1733), showing how many times the lock had been opened, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. M 109-1926). Two others are also preserved there. The first (inv. no. 207-1879) is signed Johannes Wilkes Fecit De Birmingham', and the second (inv. no. 5405-1859) 'Johannes Wilkes De Birmingham Fecit'

A further example was sold in these Rooms, see Antique Arms, Armour and Modern Sporting Guns ..., 1 December 2009, lot 454

Additional information

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